


a better man with a better life

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Young Guns (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Tunstall makes Doc Scurlock wish he were a better man who lived a better life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a better man with a better life

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my BLC ladies for always being there for me! You ladies win at life!   
>  I hope my recipient enjoys this story as much as I enjoyed the opportunity to write it. Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Written for Fuschia

 

 

"We don't need another hand, I said. Are you deaf, boy?"

"I wouldn't have to only ride out. I---I can both read as well as write. I attended medical school back East. If you'll only grant me the opportunity to bathe and perhaps get my clothing laundered, I could be an excellent book keeper or---"

"Boy! Didn't you hear me? I ain't got a use for you! Now get out! Back to the road where you belong!"

The inn keeper had the protesting young man dragged out and dumped unceremoniously at John's feet before another minute had fully passed. With his torn, dirty clothes and unshaven face, he truly was a bedraggled sight. John sighed, knowing today would be another mark against him in the eyes of the town...and another damning rumor spread by the wagging tongues of its gossips as well if he knew this lot as well as he thought he did.

There was no help for it, as far as he was concerned. John Tunstall knew only one course of action in cases such as these.

"Tell me, young sir. What school did you attend back East?"

The young man looked up at him carefully as he set himself back to rights and moved to stand on his own feet again. John made no sudden moves. He knew better that that, out here in the wilderness of the West.

"Tulane. In New Orleans."

"That's a good school from what I have heard. I have never been to that city myself though. Perhaps you would like to come to my ranch with me, tell me about it yourself. I can always find a use for a learned man at my place," John offered sincerely.

The boy must have sensed his sincerity because he thrust his hand out quite readily.

"Josiah Scurlock, sir, I would be much obliged."

John shook the proffered hand with as much dignity as any man could manage in similar circumstances and replied, "John Tunstall. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Josiah."

"Most people call me 'Doc' actually. On account of my schooling and all."

He said this sheepishly, as if it were something John should know but he'd rather not have to tell him. John took it as an opportunity to prove a bit of his own mettle in return.

"Well, Doctor, I'll try to keep that in mind."

~*~

"Oh no!" Doc tried. The Englishman was already being more kind than he'd any right to expect by even stopping to speak with him after the reception he'd already received at every establishment in the town. He hardly wanted the man thinking he was putting on airs as a result of pointing out the stupid nickname he'd gotten himself stuck with.

"I'm not a doctor. I failed to graduate, sir."

"John," Mr. Tunstall corrected quietly. "You should call me John, Doctor. Sir makes me feel rather uncomfortable, I'm afraid."

He motioned for Doc to walk at his side and Doc took the excuse to start moving gratefully. He'd attracted quite a crowd after his grand exit from the hotel. Doc'd only managed to notice the simple cart at the edge of the walk when Mr. Tunstall -John, started talking again.

"How much of your education did you complete at Tulane?"

John swung himself into the cart seat with ease. John followed around to the other side to match his example as well as he was able while he considered what the man might be asking him. He decided to go for the truth.

"I was set to graduate when I had to leave my studies."

That was easy enough to admit to. It was only odd on account of how no one had ever bothered to ask him before.

"Then you had not yet been called upon to treat ailments? You had seen no patients nor treated any wounds?"

Doc considered again before answering, "No. I had treated patients from my second year on out. All students are required to serve duty hours at the clinic hospital as soon as they've passed their first year exams. It's the only way they let you keep studying at Tulane."

"Ahh. I see."

John was quiet for so long, the town had fallen behind them before Doc worked up the nerve to speak.

"Sir? John, I mean. I don't understand. What were you getting at about my learning? I assure you, what I said back there was the truth. Every word of it. I can both read and write with ease."

"Oh, no, Doctor. I was merely thinking on the nature of your thinking. I didn't mean to worry you."

Doc couldn't help himself. He had a curious nature to him.

"My thinking?"

"Yes. It appears as though you believe that the conference of the degree itself is what merits the use of the title. That's a great deal of importance to place on the handing over of a simple slip of paper, Doctor."

It sounded strange when put that way. Doc wondered how the Englishman had come to any such conclusion from the few words they'd exchanged.

"I'm not a doctor. I'm not. I didn't graduate. I was only set to. I can't just claim to be a doctor on account of having some years of schooling for it. It's not the way things are done. It's not fair."

John mused quietly so Doc had to lean closer in to hear him over the hooves of the horses as their cart traveled down the worn roadways.

"The way things are done," John hummed to himself thoughtfully before continuing, "It seems to me that this country itself was founded as a direct result of a conflict of interests in the way things were done. I hardly think it American of you to simply accept things on _the way things are done_. If you've done the work, learned your lessons, and practiced your craft, then you have earned your title in my esteem, Doctor."

Doc smiled slightly at the rigid determination in John's voice. He'd never met anyone like him before; John reminded Doc of better times, better people from a better life that didn't even feel like his own most days here in the West.

"Thank you."

"No thanks are necessary. I am not quite so young as you, my new friend. I know that life is rarely fair on its own. We men must create fair for ourselves and that is a sad but true fact, young Doctor."

Doc laughed because there was nothing more to be said in light of such wisdom. He hoped that this time, this time he'd find a chance to be a better man than he'd turned out to be.

~*~

Doc wasn't wrong about his estimations for John Tunstall's place but he wasn't entirely right either. He was a Regulator within a day of joining the boys in the bunkhouse and he'd proved more than his reading and writing to John within a day of that. Doc'd thought coming to John's place would mean he'd have a chance to put away the guns and pick up his books again; he'd thought he'd be able to be a better man again.

Doc hadn't planned on learning that he could be a good man who only happened to have to prove himself with a pistol from time to time but that's exactly what happened. He learned -from John and from the other Regulators- that good men were a different type of man in the West. 

His days fell into a rhythm. Doc spent the morning -after breakfast and wasn't that a novelty? Eating three square meals a day at a real table with real dinnerware like a civilized man.- riding fence with the Regulators: repairing what needed repairs, herding John's stock back in when it got too far out of bounds, and occasionally chasing off the kind of predators that came on two legs instead of four. His nights? Doc spent his nights helping John teach his Regulators reading and writing. 

It turned out that John wasn't joking when he said he had an interest in education. John believed that knowledge was power and that power should be free to everyone. He wanted all the Regulators to both read and write regardless of whatever ill-winds had blown them into his home. Doc helped as best he could, lending out his knowledge of poetry along with his one shabby volume of verse he'd managed to keep from his previous life; it was the first time in his life when Doc wasn't worried he'd be ridiculed for his knowledge of verse.

A week had passed when John presented him with a beautifully bound collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. 

"I thought you might appreciate it more than my shelf," John said simply. 

Doc turned the book over and over in his hands. He'd grown more and more uncomfortable with the arrangements at the ranch and this was all he could stand without saying anything. All the others had -as usual- gone on to bed to escape more reading and writing from himself and John, leaving them to their incomprehensible love of reading and each other.

Doc had grown accustomed to being up alone with John at night. Occasionally they'd spoken but mostly they read together in companionable silence. Silence that had grown -for Doc- more oppressive than companionable as the days progressed and he was tired of it; he had to say something. John deserved it.

Doc closed his book with a firm snap.

"Aren't you going to ask why I'm here? What brought me here, John? To your place?" Doc stressed lightly.

John closed his own book more carefully and looked up to meet his eyes even more cautiously than that.

"Only if you want to tell me. I've found there are many ways to get to know a man. You love to read," John nodded to the book in Doc's lap, "I know that. I know you're a lover of poetry from the way that you recite it during the boys' lessons and I know you're a rather deplorable hand in the kitchen because of the unfortunate occasion on which you elected to help replace our cook. I know you've skill as a teacher and you hold nearly as great a love for knowledge as I myself."

John shrugged and Doc's eyes were drawn to the tight fit of his fine shirt across his still-broad shoulders. John Tunstall was still a Hell of a man even if he was frequently accused of being a dandy. He couldn't help the circumstances of his birth any more than the rest of them, Doc supposed. 

"I have found, Doctor, that the measure of a man is rarely taken best by looking at who he has been, but better gained by looking at who he is now. For example, you're here in _my place_ now, aren't you, Doctor?"

Doc nodded, finding himself almost amused at his own frustration. 

"Yes. I'm here now. Shouldn't it matter why?"

John nodded, a wry grin fixed in place, "I've already spoken of my views on that, Doctor. Now, the question you should be asking, the question **I** would be asking if I were in your place, is whether or not it's true what they say about _me_ around town. Why do I allow outlaw boys to live at my place?"

Doc's skin crawled at the way John was looking at him, so knowingly. His face flushed as he realized exactly what John meant and he had to stop him, to say something. John Tunstall was a good man. He was possibly the best man Doc Scurlock had ever met. He didn't deserve to even have made mention such things in his presence.

"No! John, you don't understand. I was at school in New Orleans. There was a woman---"

John cut him off with a snort, "There usually is but that's, again, not the present but the past. The past is like an old novel, Doctor. When you're finished with it, you should simply toss it out and start a new one. Now is the present and, in the present, Doctor, you should be wondering if the man you feel so inclined to share your secrets with is a pederast. A man with an affinity towards young boys. That is what they say about **me** around town, isn't it?"

"Damnit, John! There was a woman! A beautiful, smart, funny woman who died! She died because of me! Because of my attentions! _That_ is important. Not some no-account rumors!"

"I do have an affinity for men! I **prefer** men. You don't want to know that, Doctor? You're not inclined to believe you deserve to know that? To know there's some truth to the gossips after all?" John demanded. 

"I wouldn't ask you that, John. I wouldn't have ever asked that of you. You didn't have to tell me anything, not one thing about that, do you understand me?"

Doc had to know that John understood him. He couldn't think about what John had said. He couldn't let it matter because John was a good man who he didn't deserve to even be sitting in the same room with; he couldn't let John think he deserved to hear any such confessions from him.

John cut in on Doc's panic with a sigh.

"You Americans. You all seem to want to blame us Englishmen for pandering to the Old Ways yet it is you yourselves who seek ever to keep yourselves bound down to the laws of a society that we have chosen to flee from. To leave behind. I knew the world I was leaving behind to come to this country, to this place, Doctor. I know exactly the place I have taken up here and I am glad of it. I am no more a lord or earl here than you are a servant or a slave."

Doc looked anywhere but at John's face. The sheer earnestness of the man was unnerving, shaming to him. He couldn't look at him and hear such. He wasn't good enough. There weren't men good enough in this country for John Tunstall. Surely there were not any that Doc Scurlock knew.

"Listen to me, Doctor. Listen!"

Doc looked anyway. He looked because even though it hurt him to do so, John Tunstall was a man who deserved to be looked in the eye.

"I have no more claims to privacy than you or any of the other boys who reside here on this ranch. I claim no more right to my secrets than you yourself and I offer my secrets to you now as freely as you have offered your own. So if you have questions for me, Doctor, feel free to ask them and I shall answer. Whether you believe it or not, you are a man who deserves answers to his questions. Alright?"

Doc forced himself to smile even though he didn't feel like it. He knew deep inside himself -in the part of himself that was still unwashed and unclean and still smelled of the blood and filth of the Dirty Underwear Gang of Missouri- that he didn't deserve to even be sitting here in this man's presence much less questioning him of anything. He wasn't going to say that though: Doc respected John Tunstall enough to not argue a point with the man that would only end up making them both frustrated at the other's refusal to see his own truth.

"I'm a poet, you know?" Doc tried instead. "I write poetry, I mean. It's not very good. I'm not the most original out there but I enjoy it. I see beauty in things. I want to---to see beauty in things. There's so much ugly out there, John. So much ugly and hate. I like to look for the beautiful and strange so I can sort of push it all aside, reach out of my own self and touch something pure. Does that make sense?"

John smiled soft.

"Yes, Doctor. It does. I should dearly love to read your poetry some time or, if you were willing, I would love to hear you read it aloud to me some night. Perhaps a time such as now when the other boys have all gone on to sleep."

Doc hesitated enough for John to quietly continue.

"It would be no more than reading, I assure you. You are a fine companion, Doctor. I would never seek more from you than what you were willing to offer. Your intellectual companionship more than meets my expectations for this place. I want you to know that. I truly do value you for more than your pretty face regardless of what the gossips might say."

Doc looked back down to the book in his hands and smiled because it was funny to him in a way that it shouldn't have been. He wasn't good enough. He'd likely never be good enough to wash away the sins of the life he'd led so far.

"I've hardly got a pretty face but I reckon I could read you some of this verse if you'd like. To start with, I mean. I don't think you should have to stand my own tonight on top of everything else."

John laughed quietly as he always seemed to, "I believe this is another occasion on which we shall have to agree to disagree, Doctor. Feel free to read on, if you would like. I do have an appreciation for the Bard though I think you underestimate the value I place on you and your own talents."

Doc grinned at him before turning the pages to one of his favorites. He hoped the day would come when he wouldn't disagree with John quite so much on that point. Maybe he could learn to appreciate more than the West with John. Some day.

Doc began to read and hoped the day would be soon when he learned to toss out the novel of his past so he could start then on the book of his future. He had a feeling John Tunstall might feature in that volume as more than a passing mention if the way John was attending him now had anything to do with it.

Doc found he didn't mind that thought half so much as he imagine another man might ought to and he was grateful for that knowledge. He wanted to be a better man. John Tunstall deserved him to be a better man as a result of his hospitality and his teaching and simply for being the best man Doc had ever come to know. He deserved Doc to be better so Doc would be better. He would be because he had to be. For John. 

 


End file.
